Part 6: "I will give you ten THOUSAND dong" - Vietnam

I went to Vietnam on a whim (a whim of mine, He had it planned long ago), meaning, essentially, that I almost didn't go at all. And like all the places I'd been to before this I knew almost nothing about the history or the culture.

However, from the very moment that I boarded the plane to Hanoi I was head over heels enchanted with this place.

Maybe it was the way that the buildings were a feast for the senses in their crumbly, multi-colored, old European architecture. Maybe it was the fascinating way that the largely motorcycle traffic moved like water around those attempting to cross the street. Or the language made up of six clearly discernible tones unlike any I had heard yet. Maybe it was the way that the street food consisted of every imaginable Asian delicacy and French baguettes to boot. Or the way that people crowded the dirty sidewalk on tiny plastic stools to consume all manner of pho. Perhaps it was the cacauphony of fading car horns, sellers hawking their wares, and birds twittering in cages. Or the miracle of thousands of tiny limestone islands and caves rising out of the misty turquoise waters of Halong Bay. Maybe it was the fact that one U.S. dollar would get you almost 18,000 dong with which you could buy your fill of any fruit flavored tea with or without ice. Or the labyrinth of streets only marked by what was being sold, one street for shoes, one for toys, one for tin, one for gold. Perhaps the way that every single person was overwhelmingly hostipitable, the way that they insisted that I looked charming, memorized my name, and told me that in Vietnam people look forward to the future rather than being angry at the past... maybe these things were what did me in.

My final day in Hanoi was typical of my entire time there and went something like this:
-A morning spent shipping a rice hat back to the states with a friend. In, what I assume is typical Vietnamese fashion, they didn't just place the hat into a large box stuffed with packing peanuts (which is what my western mind was anticipating) instead they cut up some cardboard boxes to create a package which fit the pyramid shape of the hat.
-A quick walk around the lake to find another friend who was waiting provided a group of five Vietnamese guys the chance to celebrate Valentine's Day with a foreigner as they stopped to hand me a paper rose and blushingly wish me a happy day.
-A trip to the women's museum granted us a new perspective on the Vietnam war as well as the lot of women who work as street vendors in Hanoi.
-A bowl of "speical" pho for lunch, some peach tea with ice as refreshment, and then a long car ride back to the airport with an extremely kind driver.
-A Vietnamese girl heading to Austraila to study as a seat mate was a special treat and as our plane landed in Bangkok she gave me a 500 dong note and a DVD of Casablanca as proof of our friendship.

Totally content to just absorb such a place, people, culture, and history I couldn't believe I had to leave.

I would love to return. That place is alive. Things are happening there even if I can't put my finger on what.